LG Nexus 4 Australian Review: If Only Android Was Always This Good

The Nexus 4 is the unassuming fourth album in the Google-certified smartphone master collection that is the Nexus program. It’s part of a larger ecosystem this time around, alongside the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets. Google is looking for a hat-trick after success with the Nexus 7. Is this another Google slam dunk?

What Is It?

When Google wants to carve out a new Nexus, it finds hardware from a third-party manufacturer in the form factor it likes, and takes the bare bones of the device to rework it into something more fitting.

This time Google has selected LG and its Optimus G for the Nexus line honours. Despite a design overhaul, the Nexus 4 isn’t all that different to the Optimus G when you get down to it.

The 4.7-inch black rectangle is still running a quad-core 1.5Ghz Snapdragon processor, only without the integrated 4G support; it’s still packing 2GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera and Gorilla Glass for added protection. The screen is beautiful at 1280×768 True HD IPS Plus and 318 ppi and it runs Android 4.2 for added smoothness and power.

The only differences come in the storage available on-board — Nexus 4 has 8GN and 16GB versions whereas the Optimus has 32GB — and the weight — 139 grams for the Nexus 4 while the Optimus G tips in at 145 grams.

What’s Good

The Nexus 4 is fairly bland to look at despite the subtle sparkle pattern, but where this thing really hits its mark is power.

This is one of the most powerful Android devices on the market right now, making mincemeat of the competition. It clocks in with a Geekbench score of 2115, making it more powerful than an Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Air (2009), gruntier than the Nexus 7′s quad-core Tegra 3 processor and don’t even mention the iPhone.

The only device that outperforms it on raw power is the Nexus 10 tablet built by Samsung, which clocks in with a score of 2356. Compare these two devices to the closest-ranked Android devices and you end up at the Galaxy Note II which packs a score of 1941. This new phone really is a superweapon with a Nexus logo.

The phone is solid but not too heavy and I actually quite like the subtle sparkles on the rear of the device.

Android 4.2 is a welcome addition to the new Nexus, too. It’s smoother than ever and it really feels as if our little Android is growing up into the operating system we want it to be after all this time.

New additions in Android 4.2 include Google Gestures, which is Mountain View’s answer to Swype. The speed difference between actually lifting your finger to type and Gesturing is minimal, but out of the box, Google has managed to create a smarter, smoother, more manageable one-touch type experience than Swype ever could be. Google Gestures tries to guess the words you’re writing and when it can’t figure it out, you have the option to teach it so it doesn’t foul up next time. It’s super-smooth and very intelligent to use.

Google has continued to make modifications to the Notifications pane, too. Android 4.2 features a flipping Notifications pane that makes setting things like Wi-Fi hotspots, screen brightness and Airplane Mode really easy.

Android 4.2 also puts Voice Search onto the device. This means that your queries are answered faster than ever because the phone knows what you’re saying without having to ping Google via a data network to double check. That’s going to help both the time you spend searching and the cash you spend on a data plan.

The camera is beefed up with a new panorama mode called Photo Sphere that makes an interactive, 3D landscape of what you’re looking at. It’s a little strange in some areas but it’s still one of the cooler ways to make a great looking landscape to share with your friends.

The Gallery app also has a new editing function that lets you filter your images, Instagram-style.

On top of all these goodies, Android 4.2 is also faster, smoother and more usable than ever.

The Nexus 4 also rings up at a crackingly good price. Something like this you could expect to pay in the realm of $800 for, but Google is trying to stitch up the bottom end of the market and get these out the door for cheap. That means in Australia, you can expect to pay $349 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model. That’s absurdly good value. Is it any wonder they all sold out in minutes?

What’s Bad?

The Nexus 4 is such a great phone that it’s tough to find fault with it. I only found two issues that put me off, one of which has a very sensible explanation.

First, the most obvious downside: the lack of 4G/LTE support. 4G isn’t an omission that Google has done lightly though.

On the surface you might think it’s a way to keep costs down, and while it probably is helping the Nexus 4 to that all important $349, it’s not the primary reason. Google actually omitted 4G from the Nexus 4 to keep the world on an even playing field.

When Google released the Galaxy Nexus it built with Samsung, it was sold through carriers. That meant bespoke hardware and software versions had to ship all over the world. That made updating the device a massive chore. It’s part of the reason that the device still doesn’t have Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Google wanted to fix its mistake this time around and instead decided to sell the hardware via the Play Store rather than saddle it to carriers, and it also opted for simple hardware and software so that it didn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time the device needed an update.

3G is a global wireless network standard, whereas 4G/LTE runs on different frequencies all over the world. By speccing the handset lower, it made it easy for Google to sell everywhere at once and keep updated.

Sure it’s bad that it doesn’t pack 4G, but that’s not Google’s fault.

The only other issue I found with the device was with the SIM tray. The eject slot on the device isn’t flat, it’s all jagged and torn up. It’s easy enough to sand down, but taking your new phone into the shed for a tune up isn’t something you should have to do on day one.

This Is Weird…

When we pulled the device out of the box and fired it up, we were disappointed with the screen. I was just about ready to write the device off because of it, but upon investigation, it’s not all bad. The Chrome and Camera shortcut icons in the bottom tray look like junk, but when you delve further into the device, the screen rights itself and looks as beautiful as ever. Whites are white and colours are deep and vibrant.

We suspect that the weird vertical icon grain visible is the fault of lower resolution icons rather than a lower resolution screen. It’s tough to describe in text, but go and have a look at the device for yourself (if you can) before spending your cash if this is something that has you concerned.

Should You Buy It?

The Nexus 4 is the confirmation we were all waiting for that Google is now building phones to a price point. Rather than have the best of everything on the one device, Google is picking its battles. With all of the new Nexus devices from LG, Asus and Samsung (Nexus 4, 7 and 10), Google is loading devices up to the nines with power while stripping out the elements that drive up price like heavy metal bodies and super-bright screens. This isn’t a bad thing, though.

The benefit of this corner cutting is cheap handsets that are lowering the floor-price of amazing smartphones. By competing on price and power, Google is stitching up the market and making it better for the rest of us to buy phones. Sooner or later, we’re going to demand lower prices from all manufacturers as a result.

The Nexus 4 is unassuming. It’s not flamboyant and despite the sparkly cover, it’s not outrageous either. It looks like just a run-of-the-mill black rectangle. It’s what’s inside this discreet enclosure though that makes it the silent killer. It’s not a device you buy when you want to show off. Instead, it’s the phone you buy when you want something that’s still going to be incredibly relevant in two-years time.

The Nexus program was started to give developers and customers the best that Google had to offer, and nothing has ever been truer to that original mission than the Nexus 4. It’s the perfect Android device.

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"Rather than have the best of everything on the one device, Google is picking its battles."
But it pretty much DOES have the best of everything!
Why not include the LTE antenna for those areas of the world that have suitable LTE?
Sure, don't advertise the fact, but why have the hardware and not use it all for an antenna that costs fractions or perhaps nothing extra at all?

They could have included LTE no problems. LG are already doing it for the Optimus G.

There's a weird argument about requiring licenses from carriers in order to implement which is just BS, look at the phones on sales at Mobicity that will run on LTE networks in Australia, they're not licensed. Sure it might be a US thing, but why punish the rest of the world for the faults of the US networks?

Not if you bought it from an Australian carrier, which would be the "T" variant of the phone running yakjudv instead of plain yakju. The updates for the yakju** devices are sent by Samsung, and they are playing sillybuggers and not sending the update to the Australian carriers for testing.

Nice story. It does have a few cons but hey, not every smartphone is perfect. In fact, no high-end smartphone is perfect. And this is a high-end smartphone at mid-level pricing which is AMAZING! So this device is definitely gonna create a benchmark in the Current Smartphone Era. And this is the beginning of a new generation of smartphones which are gonna create their own name without bearing outrageous price tags. Best PLAY from GOOGLE!!!

I guess Luke is just saying that there's no specific standout feature, like the Lumia 920's 'pureview' camera, or the iPhone's whatever they have. I'd argue that the price is truly outstanding, but it's not exactly a feature of the device.

LTE isn't necessary IMO. if you can get a good HSDPA connection you're going to be able to almost instantly pull down websites or update social apps within seconds... and anything bigger should be done over wi- fi unless you enjoy monstrous excess data charges!

wish this had more capacity or an SD card slot though. i'd stab someone today for one if it did.

2 things:
1) You spent 4 paragraphs talking about cpu mark scores... Who cares, its a phone. It doesnt need 4 cores. Your average game/application wont utilize this. Especially with the general lower quality apps from the market place, you can almost guarentee most apps are coded to use a single thread. Unless its something graphics intensive, then your really after extra GPU cores not CPU cores.
2) I bet if this was an article about an Apple device not including 4G, half of the article would be bitching about the lack of 4G.

Somehow it used to be Apple lovers thought their shit didnt stink, now i think the tables have turned and Android lovers behave more and more like this...

Your right. On one condition, that previously the system was struggling to complete its "processing" in a timely fashion. Most dual core phones operate perfectly, they run games and apps great.

If you could automagically flick a switch that disabled half the cores in a dual core phone, then chances are the power usage would drop, and the affect that the user feels would be minimal if any! Especially when you not actually running an app.

@lukehopewell
Nice review Luke. Is it a complete review?
You didn't mention the lack of expandable memory or the wireless charging.

I know 16GB is enough for some people, but if you use your 8MP camera, record in 1080p, store music for "on the go", download Maps for navigation when overseas, 16GB runs out very quickly. That's not to mention having a few game apps here and there, perhaps a backup using something like Titanium Backup Pro...
I know some of this stuff can be solved with cloud storage, but we all know how expensive mobile data can be, and uploading via 3G is quite slow.

As for wireless charging. Why is no one talking about this. Finally a flagship devices has built in wireless charging. I've been waiting for this for years. The lack of a removable battery can be annoying but I think there is a hard reset "paper clip" button.
No removable battery also means the SIM card is in a silly little external tray which is pretty average apparently.

The storage is really the only thing holding me back on this phone. It looks like an awesome device but I believe I would struggle with only 16Gb.
Make a 32GB version or one with 32GB SD card support and TAKE MY MONEY!

Well if the Nexus 7 is anything to go by, I reckon they'll have a 32GB version before too long. Not a bad play, because it draws in the early adopters that aren't too fussed about the lower storage capacity, then everyone else can jump aboard when those concerns have been allayed with a higher capacity model...

Nope, I'll be buying the 16GB... once it's back in stock =)
That being said, I'd probably still hold out if I wanted the 32GB, because I can't see any handsets coming onto the market in the next month or two that are comparable when it comes to specs-to-price ratio, so there's not really much to lose in waiting for a bit...

I'd say the fact that the phone is faster than a laptop that is only 3 years old (and pretty much every other smartphone out there for that matter) is pretty important.

As for your second point, Apple constantly market themselves as "the best". So an omission of 4G would be a pretty big thing to miss.
However in this instance, as Luke points out, Google's current goal doesn't seem to be the complete best overall. Rather they're trying to push out as many competitive products as they can at the lowest price point.

I'd say that the fact that other testing says that the phone doesn't even come close to taking advantage of its processor means that focusing on one pointless spec is pretty unimportant. The benchmarks in anandtech's review http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/google-nexus-4-review/3 have the Galaxy S3 and HTC One X slapping it around while the iPhone 5 stomps on its head.

Exactly. Your phone does not need this sort of processing power. 95% of the smart phone user base wont even know what a core is, let alone give two shits if you told them this one has 4 over other devices which have 2... Its a useless spec, hence why most smart marketing teams try to not use it...

@thundaja you prove my point exactly. Its okay for everyone else to leave out something like 4G. But you have just said, it would be wrong if Apple didn't include. Being the best doesnt mean it has 4G.

I'm mearly trying to get across the point if this was Apple releasing a device at this point in time, without 4G, it would be like a witch hunt... Its easy to hate, thats all im saying.

I'm thinking about getting one of these for my wife, as she wants an Android phone to have apps on it to keep our 2 1/2 year old daughter entertained. But the glass back of the N4 is worrying me a little, as a 2 1/2 year old is sometimes prone to dropping phone-shaped objects.

Is this thing going to shatter into a million pieces if it gets dropped?

Other reviewers have mentioned inadvertantly dropping it, but none mentioned it breaking. I think its soft edge makes it a bit more tolerant of impacts than the old Apple exposed glass edges design. But any design with only one glass side is going to be tougher.

Can I just stop everyone for a moment here to think about what the reaction would be if the iPhone 5 did not have LTE? I highly doubt it would be "not apples fault". Why is it okay from one manufacturer and not from another?

As WP fanboi, this phone looks great.
Unless you live within 20km of CBD, 4G is a little pointless to have (according to the 4G network map for Sydney, correct me if I'm wrong) as you wouldnt have coverage.
As good as this looks, I'll still be grabbing my Lumina 920 outright when Telstra finally get them back in stock

I don't buy that justification for lack of 4G at all. They could have just asked for what location you are from. I can buy direct from other manufacturers and get a 4G device that works locally, how is this device any different? Add to that that 3G bands are not universal either.

I realise many people can live without 4G, but the review makes it sound like Google has done everyone a favour by omitting it or something or that they couldn't have included it purely because they are selling direct. Had they sold to carriers, nothing would have changed so far as what hardware was needed to be provided where.